I’ve said before that
I think information professionals (both those with library science
backgrounds and those with IT backgrounds) are the most undervalued and
underutilized people in most organizations. Over the past decade, many
organizations have deployed a lot of knowledge resources and technology
out to the front lines in an attempt to get
- improvements in productivity,
- research done by the people who really know the organization’s business, and how the research will be applied, and
- more valuable knowledge being shared throughout the organization.
This process of ‘blowing up the corporate library’ is called disintermediation.
Initially,
this met with some success. Younger employees in particular were able
to get information and do things that they couldn’t before. But over
time, even the enthusiasts realized that
- as they moved up the ranks in the organization, they simply didn’t have the time for do-it-yourself research anymore,
- they really weren’t very good at doing research anyway (no one ever taught them how to do it), and
- the really valuable knowledge transfer was still through context-rich conversations, not by sharing documents.
As a consequence, more and more staff have been looking for people (librarians, subordinates, administrative assistants) to reintermediate this work – to take it back off their hands.
So now, there is a clamouring among front-line staff for someone to:
But here’s the dilemma:
- Most
large organizations have been so massively ‘hollowed out’ by the
downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring of ‘back office’ staff that
there is no one left to do this work.
- Most information
professionals are really good at doing ‘knowledge and technology’
stuff, but don’t really understand the business of the organizations
that employ them (they haven’t worked in the field themselves or come
up through the ranks).
- Most information professionals aren’t
skilled or comfortable with the ‘customer anthropology’ work needed to
help people one-on-one in the field, and also aren't skilled at adding
meaning and value to information.
These are difficult problems
to overcome. To wait for managers to understand and address these
problems on their own initiative is pure folly. If reintermediation is
to have a chance to succeed, it’s going to need champions like
university faculties of information science, library science and
knowledge management, and professional librarians' associations. And
these champions are going to have to do three things:
- Teach
customer anthropology, personal productivity improvement, advanced
research and analysis skills, and capacity for adding meaning and value
to information, both in university programs for information
professionals, and in continuous education programs.
- Engrain in the minds of executives and recruiters the importance of training information professionals in the business
of their organizations very early in their employment, so they have the
context to apply their IP skills effectively to the organization’s
problems. This might require either a special orientation or a
‘shadowing’ program to allow new IPs to see and ask about what those on
the front lines actually do, and what their information needs are.
- Develop
case studies and success stories about reintermediation that show that
it works, and why, and hence to overcome management resistance to
commit time and resources in order to ‘fill back in’ their hollowed out
organizations. Alas, most executives still think the solution for
people who can’t (or won’t) powerfully use the knowledge and technology
available to them, is to fire them.
That’s the challenge. I’ll
be talking with students and conferences attendees over the next year
about this need and some possible approaches to addressing it. If
you’re an information professional, I’d love to hear your ideas on what
else we can do. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
